Blather

Wind! Smells! Something Shiny!

Poynter's Al Tompkins rounds up recent legislative activity on dogs in trucks. Common sense would seem to dictate that while a dog riding in the back of a pickup is cute as all hell, it isn't necessarily a good idea, as some dogs (and I say this as a dog owner) tend to let their natural joie de vivre overrule more basic instincts, like self-preservation. (Irish setters, I am looking in your direction.) Of course, some dog people disagree. "If you say the words 'ride in the truck,' they are going nuts," Amy Beasley of Columbia, TN tells The Tennessean.

And Mr. Gibson Thanks You For Your Seventeen Dollars

A Georgia couple really got into it, theologically speaking, after viewing "The Passion of the Christ": Sean and Melissa Davidson ended up debating the film so forcefully that Melissa walked away with injuries to her arm and face and Sean incurred a stigmata-like wound to his hand, although it was inflicted not with a spike but a scissors. Everybody involved seems vaguely embarrassed by the incident. "It was the dumbest thing we've ever done," Melissa says. Adds a Statesboro sheriff's deputy: "Really, it was kind of a pitiful thing.... I think they missed the point." The Smoking Gun has the incident report. (Also via reader Gary I. Selinger of New York.)

Best Obit Ever

"There's no glamour anymore. Today's generation are arrogant and indiscreet. They want to show off their material wealth. I was never interested in that; I never liked to be ostentatious. I didn't spend my money on Rolls-Royces or helicopters, and I never bought expensive horses to play polo. We just wanted to have fun and sleep with beautiful women."

Jorge Guinle, old-school Brazilian playboy, who died last week at 88

(LA Times login and password req.)

Free Skate!

UPN has ordered the producers of a new animated series to cut a brief flash of a female character's buttocks. An animated female character. Like, a cartoon. I was gonna fish around for something snarky to say about this, but then I got so depressed and tired over this climate of galloping post-Janet-Jackson yahooism we seem to be living in now that I just figured what the hell, you guys write your own jokes while I go check on exactly what's involved in moving to Vancouver.

Still Standing

The Gate's Mark Morford, whose capacity for colorful outrage continues to be a beautiful thing, wonders: Where is the retribution that San Francisco has coming if gay marriage is such an affront to the cosmos? (He also adds an interesting dimension to the debate over Biblical infallibility: Oh, and while we're at it, God also really hates shrimp. Maybe you didn't know. Shrimp are evil, as are all shrimp eaters. Clams, too. Hey, it's in the Bible. You can look it up. Why the Right is attacking homosexuals in love and not, say, Red Lobster, remains a mystery.)

Yeah? "Walk" This, Pal. I Gotcher "Walk" Right Here.

If you've ever stood on a New York City street corner, jabbing away at the button that's supposed to make the light turn, watching as it doesn't and feeling increasingly powerless and frustrated, turns out there's a good reason why: The city disconnected the vast majority of the buttons years ago. The timing of traffic lights and cross signals in New York has since the 1970s been controlled by a vast network of super-intelligent cyborgs (or something, I'm a little shaky on the details), rendering more than 2500 of the city's 3250 "Walk" buttons inoperable. The city has chosen to keep this information to itself as part of a continuing initiative to "narcotize the populace into believing they have some small measure of autonomy." (This may not be the city's official position. I'm a little shaky on the details.)

News Roundup

Let's see, what's in the news today? Lena Horne is scandalized by Janet Jackson. Justin Timberlake has bowed out as host of the upcoming "Motown 45" TV special, citing a "scheduling conflict" (i.e., "If that scrawny poseur actually hosts the Motown special, it'll be time to write some angry letters to ABC"). Michael Eisner continues to profess strong support for Disney chairman Michael Eisner. Pretty light news day, actually. Oh, by the way: We're all gonna die.

Governor Schwarzenegger, Why Is Pete Wilson Hiding Behind That Potted Palm?

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has directed the state's attorney general to take immediate steps to stop the gay marriages being performed in San Francisco. Schwarzenegger says the city's actions "present an imminent risk to civil order." Sure, as you can tell by the sickening, omnipresent news footage of newly-married gay couples rampaging through the Civic Center, drunk on love and a fabulously flinty Veuve Clicquot, smashing store windows and overturning cars and killing with impunity. Not to be a big ol' wet blanket or anything, but a spokesperson for Attorney General Tom Lockyer points out a teensy niggling little detail: In California, the AG is independently elected and the governor has no statutory authority over him. "The governor cannot direct the attorney general," said spokeswoman Hallye Jordan. "He can direct the Highway Patrol. He can direct 'Terminator 4.' But he can't tell the attorney general what to do."

The New Statistical Abstract of the United States Is Here! The New Statistical Abstract of the United States Is Here!

Say, do you enjoy the statistical arcana? Sure you do! Who doesn't? So you're going to love the hell out of the 2003 Statistical Abstract of the United States, which among many other things (many, many, many other things) tells us that:

-- Retail sales of berry-growing supplies had an inexplicable spike to $227 million in 2001, then settled back to a more reasonable $171 million in 2002

-- Aluminum recovered from scrap was a muscular 6.27 billion pounds in 2002 (which is all the more impressive when you think about how light aluminum is)

-- Sales of archery equipment stayed flat in 2002, but sales of skiing equipment ticked up sharply

-- Tourist travel to the US more than doubled among Pakistanis in the '90s, but dropped among Finns

-- People who went to the movies in 2002 tended to be better educated than people who went to amusement parks (although you couldn't prove it by the chart-bendingly high cohort of mouth-breathing, joke-explaining, loud-talking dimwits who sat behind me in movies in 2002, and the statistically insignificant numbers of people I had to ask to stop talking while riding "Space Mountain")

All this and so much more -- so very, very, VERY much more -- is here, at the US Census Bureau. And tell 'em Blather sent you! (Via Poynter's Al Tompkins.)

These Pictures Coming To You Live, Courtesy of the Goodyear Blimp "Fredo"

This is an air disaster I can get behind:

A large crane was brought in Thursday to haul away a Goodyear blimp that strayed from its moorings in Carson, drifted 300 yards over a fence, bumped into a truck and fell nose-first into a manure pile.

I even love the verbs the LA Times uses in this story: "Strayed." "Drifted." "Bumped." That plus the lovely detail about the blimp falling nose-first into a manure pile... Makes the whole thing seem downright pastoral, doesn't it? Thousands of dollars in property damage, one pissed-off nursery owner, gawker delays on the 405, and all you can really say is "Awwww... "

Well, I'm Thankful I Haven't Been Blown From The Skies... Yet

A Los Angeles-based TSA screener, quoted in the LA Times:

For my particular shift, morale is really low. About 30% are looking for another job. We feel like no one really cares about the screeners. You're a body filling that job.

Have a nice flight, everybody!

"The Center of the World"

I'm spending the weekend with Pt. 8 of Ric Burns' New York mega-doc, covering the rise and fall of the Twin Towers, and it's fascinating stuff. The PBS companion site, meanwhile, offers some nice bonuses including interviews that didn't make the cut (WTCA president Guy Tozzoli and structural engineer Leslie Robertson are particularly interesting, as is Pete Hamill on lower Manhattan before the WTC project: "The original text of New York is all below Chambers Street") and a Port Authority documentary/propaganda film from 1983.

9/11/03

Two Years After

She went to Fresh Kills with two other families about a week ago. The bugs were awful. She returned this past Friday. She brings flowers ? dahlias once, daisies another time. There's no good place to put them. She flings the stems into the expanse, hoping some of them find the right spot.

Heartbreaking stories of New Yorkers two years after 9/11, in The New York Times.